Wednesday, September 3, 2008

India defeated Tajikistan in the AFC cup and booked a direct place to the AFC Asia cup 2011 to be held in Doha. Fittingly, the local boy, Sunil Chetri came up with a hatrickto confirm India's win. This was historic event happened on August 13, just 2 days before our Independence day and 2 days after India's historic individual Gold medal win in the Beijing Olympics and I believe each and every indian football fan would have been proud of this historic win.

But it still seems that most of the country's popular game continues to be the one and only cricket. I'm really sad to see the way the country is still not able to recognize and nurture the beautiful game. Even worst is the way most of the media went about informing the news about the berth in the finals that India secured.

The following images have been sent to me by an Indian football fan and I think he has every right to get angry and let down.

Well, I think after seeing this images, even I was shocked. Might be the reporter could have thought that since India is in a finals, that has got to be cricket.Something that was satisfactory was that other news sites had the news printed under the right section though. But I feel dejected by this act of a notable and reputed media.

You can call India a formidable force in the cricketing world. But that has no right for anyone to undermine other games in the nation. Only if some big achievements are made by other sports people , are they recognized and rewarded. one example being the Great Indian shooter - Abhinav Bindra. How long are the so called sports reporters wear a band around their eyes and go on saying that cricket is the only game that people of India know, play and watch???

From another football fan who feels much needs to be done and that to soon or we could end up losing precious games in the limelight of one game's unprecedented supremacy.